Two factions within the Dallas City Council scheduled two separate meetings on Monday to discuss who should be the next city manager. Most council members skipped the first meeting.
The outcome of the second meeting? Yet another meeting slated for December 23 to "interview, virtually, the candidates," according to a motion made by District 14 Council Member Paul Ridley.
The dueling agendas come after some council members said they were kept in the dark throughout the search process. That includes 46 other applicants being withheld from elected officials until last week — and two vastly different hiring timelines proposed by other officials.
The council members who attended Monday’s meeting allowed public speakers who showed up to City Hall, to speak about the city manager hiring process.
Frank Mihalopoulos, owner of Corinth Properties, said during the meeting he has been in and around Dallas City Hall since the 1970s, and has seen what can happen when a council works together on an issue.
But he said that hasn’t necessarily happened in the search for a city manager.
“Unfortunately, we’ve been delayed for many months…its not good, its not healthy for our city,” Mihalopoulos said. “What I’m here [for] today is asking you and those that aren’t here, to make sure we all work together with the goal of…having a new city manager.”
District 9 Council Member Paula Blackmon, District 11 Council Member Jaynie Schultz and District 13 Council Member Gay Donnell Willis called for Monday morning's meeting last week.
But only two other council members showed up — District 6 Council Member Omar Narvaez and Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Adam Bazaldua.
And that put a stop to the discussion — mostly.
‘The ability to discuss’
Willis said after the public speakers that she had hoped the council could have met “and be able to discuss this very important hire, for the CEO of the ninth-largest city in America and move the process forward.”
“We just wanted the ability to discuss with our colleagues our concerns and hear from them and have them hear from us,” Willis said. “We were ready to interview, informally, virtually, three of the semifinalist candidates.”
Willis said she would direct the city secretary to cancel the interviews. Other council members gave comments as well.
“I was very disappointed that my colleagues that did not come chose to be swayed by politics, rather than our [city] charter,” Schultz told KERA after the meeting.
Monday’s meeting “added to the drama of this process,” Schultz said and added that if the Ad Hoc Committee on Administrative Affairs had followed the timeline to hire a city manager set out earlier this year — the meeting wouldn’t have been called.
The city was slated to offer someone the job before the end of the year, according to an early-August timeline proposed by Baker Tilly, the search firm hired to conduct the search, reviewed by KERA.
But an updated timeline from early-November shows a final hiring date of February 2025.
“Its kind of confusing on which timeline we are following, because either way…they’re not being followed,” Blackmon told KERA on Monday.
Monday morning’s special called council meeting also included a voting item. Blackmon said that likely wouldn’t have happened even if a quorum was present.
“I think we would have amended that,” Blackmon said. “I don’t think we would have made a final selection.”
Chaos or politics?
The search for the next city manager comes as Dallas faces uncertain times. Former Dallas and current Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax announced his resignation earlier this year. In that time many other of the city’s top executives have left too.
That includes former Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia who left the city to join Broadnax in Austin as an assistant city manager.
More recently, Dallas voters approved two controversial charter amendments that significantly changed how local government operates.
Elected officials seem to agree on one thing: the Dallas needs a permanent city manager — and soon.
Schultz said she didn’t know why the process had played out like it has. On the outside, the search has been the source of drama in the city.
That includes tense discussions and hard questions asked after some elected officials found out that 46 other candidates for the city manager position had been withheld from them until a committee meeting last week.
Schultz says the search’s chaotic narrative isn’t correct.
“It’s not chaotic, it is political, and [residents] should pressure their council member to make a decision,” Schultz said. “People are using chaos and confusion in order to deflect from the real issue of actually making a decision.”
Blackmon, Schultz and Willis sent a memo to the city secretary on Friday calling the Monday meeting.
“The most important task of a city council is to hire a city manager. Leading up to yesterday’s ad hoc committee meeting, the process has been loose and nontransparent,” the three elected officials said in a statement to KERA on Friday.
“It has excluded councilmembers in our most important duty to the taxpayers and it’s time to bring this critical choice to the full governing body.”
Blackmon told KERA on Monday that the apparent division among council members could be overcome.
“The council can get its work done when it decides to get its work done, we’ve proven that,” Blackmon said. “We got a budget done, we worked on a restoration sounding plan for the [Dallas Police and Fire Pension System.”
She added that the council will likely come together, but “it seems that there is a power struggle, there’s a struggle in what is the true process and who is the voice in that process.”
Some applicants for the city manager position are slated to be interviewed on Monday December 23 at 9 a.m.
Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at ncollins@kera.org. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.
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